48
Musílkova 27, Prague, Czech Republic
November 30
The Healer retrieved his machete from the chest of a fallen guard, wiped the blood off on a stray leg, then swung it lightly, getting the weight back. The upstairs hallway was deserted now, but for the sounds of two men slowly dying of their wounds. Ahead of him, a room beckoned cheerfully, pleasant lighting nearly hiding the shadow of another person.
He stopped for a moment, listened. The broken window behind him was whistling faintly as the wind outside blew by, and he heard the drip, drip, drip of snow melting inside and onto the floor. A very quiet shuffle called from ahead.
He started forward, involuntarily clutching his injured shoulder, squeezing the pain away. He heard another soft shuffle among the crackles and the drips, and he held his breath so he could hear better. There was a very calm and deliberate breathing, very close. Very calm. A professional.
In a moment, they were engaged. A sharp sensation sliced into the Healer’s left arm just above his elbow, and his suit screamed out with his senses, and he knew he’d been cut. He spun himself around, his machete swinging, and the other man barely dodged. A bloodied axe wrenched from the wall.
The two of them faced each other, far enough apart to be safe, but not enough to release any tension. They began again: the axe swung forward, and the Healer side-stepped, swung with his machete, but both missed; the Healer received a kick to the stomach that sent him flailing backwards, trying to keep from landing off his feet.
The axe came back towards him in a broad arc, but he let himself fall backwards, avoiding it. He landed on the ground and without a pause to think, dangerously swung his arm and weapon out towards the other man’s legs; felt a tug as he sliced the Achilles tendon.
The man growled at the pain, tried to continue on, but his leg wouldn’t hold him anymore. He dropped downward onto one knee, roaring under his breath, refusing to give in. The Healer’s arm was still exposed from the attack and his enemy knew it, lurching forward with his axe, but only managing to hit the Healer’s cloak behind him.
Pinned down, the Healer tried to escape, but the man grabbed his machete hand and started beating it onto the ground, trying to break his grip. The Healer braced himself with his other hand, his cut arm stinging sharply as disinfectant shifted in the wound. His opponent was breathing heavily, and the blood from his leg was forming a pool under them.
The Healer’s suit wailed: his heart rate burst forward, his wound seared, the blood around him creeping ever closer… his vision blurred momentarily, shook his head frantically. His hand was slammed into the ground, his index finger letting go slightly, giving up under the beating. The man was panting heavily now, moving in for the kill.
When his hand was lifted off the ground again, the Healer used the clearance to spin the blade around backhanded, and then, before he could lose the advantage, plunged it into the man’s good thigh.
This time the man screamed, gripped down towards his legs, and choked as the blade was pulled free. The Healer rolled to his knees and grabbed the axe’s handle, pulled it from the floor and unbound himself. As the other man started to curl into a ball on the floor, breathing heavily, the Healer got to his feet, holding his blade and the axe loose by his side.
The man looked up at the Healer, eyes narrow with pain and anger. His eyelids drooped slightly as the blood loss made him dizzy. The Healer watched him for a moment, trying to calm his own heart.
Then with visible effort, the Healer swung the axe back and threw it across the room, embedding it in a wall. He looked back to the man on the floor, shook his head no.
Struggling painfully, his suit still calling out for him to stop, to slow down, the Healer dragged his battered body towards the staircase.
* * *
Carey listened carefully from the centre of Daniels’ bedroom, cuffs half-latched, frozen in fear. There were no noises anymore, but the silence was terrifying. Behind him, Dmitri was rechecking clips for his pistol, repeating something to himself in Russian that Carey couldn’t understand. Daniels was back on his bed, quiet, waiting for word.
The dresser they’d propped in front of the door was thick, but it wobbled slightly when Dmitri leaned on it, making Carey shiver. And then, there… a creak outside the door, a soft pacing.
Carey moved further away from the door, back towards the bed. Dmitri reloaded his gun and took aim, his eyes narrow with intense focus. Carey stumbled as he paced backwards, never taking his eyes off the danger.
Knock.
Knock.
Knock.
No one moved, not even to check each other’s expressions. Carey felt miserably hot in his mask, panic setting in, fumbled suddenly with the latches by his neck, but couldn’t get to them. Dmitri made a quick sideways glance at him, obviously annoyed at the distraction.
The latches were so tight, Carey couldn’t get a grip somehow… his fingers felt numb… and — knock! — he pulled uselessly at a strap, the metal links clinking quietly but so very deafening somehow. He heard a gurgle, gasped for breath, trying to take the damn thing off!
“I can’t breathe…” he gasped. “I can’t breathe in this thing…”
Dmitri glared back, looking ready to waste a bullet on Carey. But instead, his eyes were wide and he half-turned, his gun lowering, face blanching.
Carey thought something must be wrong with him, a sudden panic took hold. He jerked around, trying to get free of his mask, but then he heard it again: the gurgling. A gurgling noise…
He looked around and saw Daniels, flopped over on his side on the bed, blood running out of his mouth, his ears, his nose… his eyes were bloody, crying red. He gurgled again, a crimson bubble forming at his lips, and twitched slightly. Carey gasped, staggered back.
“Oh my god…” he whispered. “His blood was clear. His blood was clear...”
Then there was a loud metallic crunch, and Carey saw a beaten blade knock the doorknob out of the door, twist round and disappear. Dmitri wasted no time: he fired into the door seven times, backing up slightly as he did so, putting distance between himself and whatever might come through the door next.
There was a moment of silence, and the sound of the shots echoed in Carey’s ears. Then, with a slow start: a bump, and then he watched with horror as the door started to slide forward, pushing the dresser with it.
Dmitri moved into the corner of the room and started firing again, unloading his clip into the door. He quickly re-loaded again and repeated the process with another ten or so bullets before stopping, watching in horror as the door kept moving. The light through the holes beamed through uninterrupted, and yet somehow, the door was still moving…
Dmitri motioned for Carey to stay still, and he slowly moved up and to the right of the door, staying flat against the wall, and aiming carefully at the space the intruder would need to come through. He was safely out of sight, ready.
Carey realized with a jolt that he was not out of sight, and stumbled backwards, next to Daniels’ limp body, and tried to stay still.
There was a moment of silence, no one moving, no sign of life from any quarter. And then, slowly, Carey saw the tip of a long battered blade climb up along the crack in the door, and across towards the light switch. He looked to Dmitri urgently, willing him to see it, but it was beyond the door, out of his line of sight.
Carey swallowed slowly, and then the room went dark.
* * *
The Healer knelt down next to the door, wood chips on his back. Beyond, the room was dark, silent. No movements, no shadows, no gleams or reflections. He held his breath, tried to quiet his suit, but it screamed at him, warned him of the cuts and bruises he already felt intensely.
He took a deep breath, closed his eyes a moment, and then dove through the door, into the room. He rolled to his feet and stayed low, checking his surroundings: a large bed, and on it, one man covered in blood… not breathing, and behind him… behind him…
The Healer gasped, got to his feet as if in a daze, and stumbled forward. Across the room was another Healer. The mask, the suit, it was unmistakable. He reached a hand out towards his comrade, slow and dazed, and before he could react, he heard a crack, and his arm erupted on him, sending him tumbling forward, his blood spraying out in front, hitting the goggles on his mask.
Without thinking, he spun round with dazed ferocity and threw his machete out in an arc. He stumbled to one knee, shocked by the sight of a thick and rough-looking man, hidden behind the door, gun smoking slightly, the machete planted deep in his chest.
“Shit,” he muttered in quiet Russian, and slumped back against the wall.
The Healer got back to his feet, turned towards the bed, towards the other Healer.
“How are you here?” he said, voice wavering with pain. “I am still on schedule. I can still clear this up before the deadline…”
The other Healer shook his head urgently, climbed up on the bed, away, like he was scared. The dead man slipped sideways, down off the bed, onto the floor. The Healer stumbled to his knees next to the body, checked the mouth, the red eyes, the blood on the shirt. He looked up at his comrade, faint.
“Was he the vector?” he asked, the room starting to spin.
The other Healer shook his head so urgently now, held his hand out to say no. And then he spoke, and the Healer jerked backwards at the foreign sounds. He shook his head as if to clear it, then heard an entirely different language again. And again, painfully, a third time, and this time it made sense to him:
“Please don’t kill me!”
French. The Healer tried to stand, but slipped over, barely catching himself on the bed.
“Who sent you here?” he asked in French, quiet, desperate.
The other Healer still seemed terrified, and it looked odd.
“I… I am from the Containment Office,” he said, his voice distorted through his mask. “I was sent to arrest this man.”
“Arrest? What Office?”
“The British Containment Office,” came the reply. “In London. England.”
It took a moment, but the Healer laughed. He lowered his head and felt the world go black, and then pulled himself back up to his feet. The British man moved further away, terrified.
“What happened to this man?” the Healer said with increasing intensity.
“I don’t know,” said the other, shaking his head. “He just started bleeding… out of his mouth, his eyes… it…there was no warning!”
The Healer looked at the dead man, saw the look of shock on his face. No warning.
“Did you inject him with anything?” he said, stepping closer to the British man.
“No! No, I just came and tested his blood. He had no diseases. Nothing that could cause this!”
The Healer reached back towards his bag to remove his testing vials, and the other man screamed, covering his head with his arms.
“There were others!” he shouted. “The wife and the stepdaughter!”
The Healer stopped, thought, then grabbed the British man by the neck, threw him off the bed, onto the ground. He loomed over, felt the blood seeping inside his glove, warm on his skin.
“Were they sick?” he boomed.
“The stepdaughter was. I don’t know what it was… it wasn’t registered…”
Then they heard it, both looking up towards the door at the same time. Distant, probably on the stairwell, two voices calling to each other, the same words repeated.
“Police,” the Healer said quietly. “They will be here soon.”
He grabbed the man’s head in his large bloodied glove, lifting him up, making him pay attention.
“Where did they go?” he demanded.
The British man feebly shook his head.
“I don’t know! Believe me, I don’t!”
The Healer tossed the bureaucrat to the ground, marched towards him, and the man scattered back, standing, slipping and hitting the curtains of the far window, and he pulled them round him for protection.
“Where did they go?” he asked again, bearing down.
The man cried, the sound so pitiful in his mask, and shook his head, holding on to the curtain so tightly it nearly ripped free.
The Healer punched him in the throat, and the man bounced back into the window, the glass cracking, and he dropped to his knees, gagging, trying to get air. The Healer placed a menacing hand on the man’s head, squeezed, and then let the bitter fury within him take over.
* * *
Sobotka saw the door first, riddled with holes, blood seeping through the hinged corner. There were no lights on inside. She nodded to Crew, motioned him forward.
They stood on either side of the door now, guns at the ready, trying to get a sense of what might be inside. Crew tried nudging the door a bit further open, but it was blocked by something. They exchanged glances uncertainly.
“This is the police!” Crew shouted, shrugging to his partner. “If you move, we’ll kill you.”
“Put your hands above your head!” added Sobotka, and Crew nodded appreciatively.
There was a loud crash, and a pained scream, and then the sound of glass breaking, falling, and Crew’s eyes opened so wide Sobotka had to put her hand out to steady him. There was scraping, some clunking, and then, an uneasy silence, punctuated by gasps.
Sobotka took her hand from her gun and gave Crew a silent countdown:
3… 2… 1…
Crew moved into the room quickly, scanning left and arcing right, and Sobotka covered him, checking for hostiles. There was a man covered in blood just by the bed, the window was shattered out, the curtains fluttering in the wind, and the only thing left was what Crew was now closing in on: the Healer, bloodied and beaten.
They circled him carefully, checking for weapons. He was on his knees, his cloak soaked with blood, his hands in the air. He looked broken, almost sagging down, swaying slightly, near death.
“Move a muscle and I’ll blow that mask off your head,” Crew said, completing his circuit. Sobotka finished checking the room and joined him there.
“You’re under arrest,” Sobotka said sternly, and Crew shot her an angry look. She squinted it away, motioned to the Healer. “I hope you’ve enjoyed yourself tonight, because you’re going to pay for it for a long, long time.”
The Healer spoke, his voice weak, raspy almost, impossible to understand. He gasped after a bit, stopped trying to talk, seemed too tired to continue. His arms were slowly drifting downwards, his whole body collapsing in slow motion.
“Don’t move!” shouted Crew, and the Healer sat up straight again, shook his head slightly.
“You’re being charged with, what… nine counts of murder?” Sobotka asked, her gun not moving from its target.
Crew nodded to her.
“I’m going to check the window,” she said, and he nodded slightly again. She backed up, keeping her gun ready, and as she reached the window, the curtains brushing past her, she peered outside, saw it was snowing thickly now. She glanced down onto the street below and saw a body there, red around it, lying distorted on the ground.
“Make that ten counts,” she said, and looked back at the Healer.
He started to shake his head again, moved his hand down towards his chest, and Crew backed up, kept his gun ready.
“Don’t do that!” he shouted angrily. “Don’t move any more!”
The Healer kept shaking his head, reached down, touched something on his belt, and started pulling it forward, something rectangular, something…
“Don’t!” shouted Sobotka, but it was too late, he was pulling it up. Before she knew what was happening, the dark room flashed brightly with gunfire, and she saw Crew’s face flinching with satisfaction, fury and a bizarre kind of justice.
When the sound stopped, Crew and Sobotka stayed perfectly still and watched the Healer crumple backwards onto the floor.